The federal government is under pressure to respond to reports Australian navy personnel fired shots as part of an operation to turn around a boat carrying asylum seekers from Indonesia.

A local police commissioner from southern Java, who did not want to be named, told Fairfax Media that villagers had plucked a number of asylum seekers from the water on 8 January after their boat was turned back by Australia.

After speaking to those on board the boat, the officer said the navy had "shot into the air just to scare them".

"The boat hadn't reached Australia – they were still at sea but they said they could already see Christmas Island," the officer said.

"But they said the Australian navy then drove them away and escorted them until they entered Indonesian waters again."

The boat had been carrying 25 people – including four children – from Bangladesh and Burma and two Indonesian crew.

The Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen said the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, had to respond to the report.

"The Australian people deserve to know what's going on here," he told ABC radio.

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said every day there were more concerning reports of actions taken on the high seas.

"The possibility of shots being fired is really alarming," she told ABC radio.